Novelist and poet, Radclyffe Hall by Charles Buchel, 1918

Novelist and poet, Radclyffe Hall by Charles Buchel, 1918
Radclyffe Hall caused somewhat of a scandal in the late 1920s after the publication of her novel The Well of Loneliness. Hall was a celebrated writer at this point winning the coveted Prix Fémina in 1926 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction in 1927. When Well of Loneliness was published in 1928, its treatment of lesbianism caused a sensational shock and the book was immediately banned. At the core of the story is a candid and earnest portrayal of love between a young girl and an older women. London magistrate, Sir Chartres Biron judged the book an “obscene libel” and ordered all copies of it destroyed. It was only after Hall’s death in 1943 that the ban was overturned and the book republished in 1948. Hall was living at 37 Holland Street in Kensington at the time of the scandal with her partner Una, Lady Troubridge. An English Heritage Blue Plaque marks the spot where they lived together for four years of their lives. Radclyffe Hall was buried in Highgate Cemetery.